--- A Question for ALL Atheistic ex-Dubs----

by gordon d 145 Replies latest jw friends

  • Asheron
    Asheron

    Ok G man I need to break down your reply and see what I understand:

    I enjoyed your examples, they made a valid point (Thank you) They did have one thing in common, Tangible result based upon our understanding of cause and effect principals even including variables (beyond our control) that were still based upon "conventional" wisdom. (What else could you base your understanding on if not conventional wisdom? Again, should you BELIEVE everything because it may be possible. I propose that you should not, but keep an open but skeptical mind when presented with previously unproven ideas ) Perhaps cultural analogies or parables further support the base of our understanding. (Are you implying that stories = Reality?) But why is it necessary to think that something as inheirantly supernatural as a communion with a seperate entity has to fit into human logic. (Inheirantly supernatural??? STRAW MAN and LOGICAL FALLACY ALERT Have we established that thier is such a thing? I must of missed that. In theory, no one said that anything must fit into human logic but how would you comprehend the communion unless there was a common ground for the understanding of the expieriance) Isn't the history of man full of examples where seemingly unexplainable phenomena was given to outrageous theory or (in the epitome of human vanity) a personification.... Just look at the humanoid God's created to explain things like the sun and moon. (yes!! exactly...do I see a hint of agnostic showing through?)

    We are obviously far more technologically advanced than those people, (What people are we talking about here?) yet we still base much of our philosophical viewpoints on theories that originated at the same time and level of human development (That is a huge assumption. These are many contemporary philosophical viewpoints)..... Platonism itself, predates Roman mythology. There was a time that human flights of fancy were labeled as heracy if they differed from the outlandish ghost stories developed (by political and social leaders) in the name of Godly worship. Some of these flights of fancy were, human flight, microscopic organisms, and relationships between humans and spiritual creatures. Are we really so advanced today, that we have no need for objectivity before claiming that anything that does not fit into "OUR" understanding or sophisticated logic is some fabrication of an overactive imagination.

    (We have great need for objectivity!! If the flight of fancy is presented to us we ask for proof. If thier is no proof than we do not adopt it as a fact. It does not negate the possibility that it may be proven true in the future but it does logically flow that you would or should adopt a positive belief in the concept. Are we to move all possible beliefs into a "to be proved later box" and run our lives as if they could all be true? Certainly not so why this specific belief? I am not claiming that God does not-could not-has not existed. It is you that is making the claim that God exists but you are offering no proof other than "nature screams it" I put that in the "Argument from Beauty" box)

    I think you are applying what is know as the "putting God in the gaps" concept mixed with the "argument from personal incredulity". I think it goes like this: Since we can't exsplain everything right now and I cant imagine anything that could "make a flower, world etc fill in the blank" it must be God's hand. Again, all I am asking for is proof.

    It might be justifyable if humans had the intellect to create something as simple as a squirrel ( I feel the Irreduceable Complexity argument or the Teleogical Argument coming) something as simple as an ant..OK...forget animals, how about a flower. Until that day comes, we might want to admit that we don't know everything.(We have and we continue to admit that. That is the basis of Science. I submit that when or if we CAN make a flower or Squirrel we would STILL not know everything) And IF these items were created by something with a conscience would it not be wise to admit that such a being would not necessarily be confined to the laws that govern our understanding, on this one little planet, in the middle of nowhere. (Serious STRAW MAN alert. It is the IF we are debating. You continue to argue based on the IF being agreed. This is not proof. These are assumptive arguments based upon the existance of the very thing we are debating)

    respectfully,

    Asheron

  • parakeet
    parakeet

    gordon d: "I fully realize that no one who has yet to experience this for themselves would ever understand it... but at the moment that it happens, you completely understand, and you have a peace that overwhelms you."



  • Asheron
    Asheron

    I am not saying that I've been given mystical powers? I am saying that an unexplainable change occured during my search for God. This change resulted to an immediate opening of my eyes to spiritual matters that had escaped me (no matter how much I had meditated on them in the past). Some people may refer to this as being born again, seeing the light, or becoming one with God. It's impossible to explain, there simply are no words for it. I would have NEVER believed it as something from God, at any point in my life... until it happened. The people that say one becomes a "new creature" are right..... just ask those that knew me before and after. It is not the same as the transformation of an achoholic in recovery, or a psych patient experiencing a breakthrough.... it is a complete changing of a persons very being. I fully realize that no one who has yet to experience this for themselves would ever understand it... but at the moment that it happens, you completely understand, and you have a peace that overwhelms you.

    Oh no the always unprovable "Argument from personal expieriance"...dam..just as the debate was heating up we hit he ultimate no-go zone. Oh well was fun while we were using our brains.

    Asheron

  • gordon d
    gordon d

    Hi Parakeet.... See.... plenty of popcorn left!

    EVERYONE!!! Please re-read the post,,,

    The "Attack" was directed ONLY at those people (that happened to be atheist) that were making fun of some newbie's search for knowledge. By voicing their opinion (in a coercive manner) about the practicality of the existence of God...... It struck me as sad that IF the same person had expressed an interest in alternative lifestyles, Wicca, or scientology, that no condemnation would have been voiced.... we're all way too sophisticated for that! But if someone mentions the name Jesus, you'd think they were commiting their lives to Hitler!

    If anybody else was offended, that was probably due to my poor analogy ... or ....their own guilty conscience.

    Hey Asheron... Please give me some time to really "read" your last post... It's far too deep, just to glance over.

  • gordon d
    gordon d

    Hey Asheron...

    dam..just as the debate was heating up we hit he ultimate no-go zone

    C'mon... Don't be such a wuss! I just gave you the easiest target ever!

    What are you? some kinda' "GIRL" ..........There... that ought to do it!

    P.S. I still gotta read your second to the last post but might be too tired tonight.....

  • parakeet
    parakeet

    gordon d: "The "Attack" was directed ONLY at those people (that happened to be atheist) that were making fun of some newbie's search for knowledge."

    I must have misunderstood your thread title, "A question for ALL atheistic exdubs."

  • Asheron
    Asheron

    C'mon... Don't be such a wuss! I just gave you the easiest target ever! yea but thats no fun.

    What are you? some kinda' "GIRL" ..........There... that ought to do it! Now you've done it. You woke the Dragon

    P.S. I still gotta read your second to the last post but might be too tired tonight.....

    Sleep well and peacefully.

    Asheron

  • Mysterious
    Mysterious

    Don't assume that one cannot be happy or "get living" without god. My life is every bit as meaningful as the evangelical down the street. My lack of belief in god does not stem from what the WT told me about who he is and where to find them, it stems from there being a far better explanation for things in life than some supernatural entity. Perhaps you might enjoy reading a book on the subject of evolution that was not written by the JWs for they lied about that too.

    Mysterious,
    Happy in life with no faith in god.

  • funkyderek
    funkyderek

    gordon d:

    I looked in all the obvious spots... I took the advice of others (who had never found one)... Looked in places that no one would ever think of looking.... I even gave up for a while.... but towards the end of the day.. I found an egg! It was right there all along, it just wasn't the shape,color, or size that I had expected, so I had looked right over it!

    Yes, instead of being the shape, colour and size of an egg as expected, it was the shape, colour and size of a rock. You just declared that it was really an egg.

    There's nothing wise about frittering away this life pretending you're going to get another one.

  • Satanus
    Satanus

    Been reading about the newly found abel galaxy. Instead of weakening cosmologists' current view, they claim that it agrees and develops it firther...

    He said the find lends weight to theories of how galaxies and stars first formed after the Big Bang, when space is thought to have exploded in a fraction of a second from a speck to an immensity bathed in heat and radiation. It took an estimated 300 million years for the universe to cool and for the stars to form from hydrogen and helium.

    Theory holds "that at the start of the universe, galaxies were small, like a kind of basic building block," Schaerer said in a telephone interview.

    "Afterward they started to fuse together," he added. "The universe was still quite compact and there were frequent meetings between different galaxies; the biggest swallowed the smaller ones and grew into big galaxies like our own."

    http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2004/03/02/most_distant_galaxy

    _in_universe_detected/

    S

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